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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > November > 10 > Entry
Review: ‘Fantasmaville’ at the Long Center
“Fantasmaville” is a play about ghosts. Unfortunately for a play that can otherwise be charming, funny, and topical, it has a few of its own as well.
“Fantasmaville,” a new project from playwright Raul Garza and Teatro Vivo, focuses on an East Austin neighborhood undergoing gentrification, from a new mixed-race family moving in to defend the traditions to the city pushing a dog park on an empty lot. For the families involved, its less a referendum on economic statuses than cultural and personal histories — at least it’s meant to be.
Tensions run high between Flor, filled with sass and sweetness by Patricia Arredondo, and her mildly estranged daughter Celeste. While Celeste and her gringo husband, Martin, played by Karinna Perez and Chase Wooldridge, epitomize bleeding heart yuppiness, bordering on cliché, other locals like Gustavo and Freddy, laconically drawled out by Donato Rodriguez III and Rupert Reyes, are content to sit in a re-imagined Scoot Inn drinking the day away.
The first half of the play introduces the whole cast of characters, switching mostly easily among them. Stylized animations projected on the back of the stage, loosely connected conversations and monologues, and, of course, an Austin focus give the progression a “Slackers” feel. With some that feel more rambling than ambling, though, that brings the good and bad side of Richard Linklater.
Overall they remain largely enjoyable through the first act, and Garza balances well, switching between domestic conflict, sitcom laughs, bilingual cursing, and simply pleasant vignettes. As the neighborhood begins to clash over the proposed dog park and undercurrents of racism, though, the conversations have a tendency to sound more like formal debates or Socratic dialogs than parts of the building story.
The second half, with its literal ghosts and fixation on the past, exacerbates the situation. “Fantasmaville” becomes more about what has happened than what is happening. The transition gives David Blackwell, as a bigoted white resident of the neighborhood, a chance to shine as he recalls better times, evoking humanity under his bitterness. Sadly, the narrative twist involved in the revisionist reminiscing undercuts the moment.
It’s perhaps appropriate that a story about a community with so many different approaches to life, politics, and culture has so many ups and downs. Fortunately, the warm jokes and conflicted neighborhood still make it worthwhile. And, oh yes, the preachy, life-size racoon spirit guide doesn’t hurt either.
(Joey Seiler is a freelance theater writer in Austin.)
(“Fantasmaville” continues at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 16 at the Long Center Rollins Studio Theatre, 701 W. Riverside Drive. $14-$18. 474-5664, thelongcenter.org.)
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